"I don't think it was an act of war," he told CNN's "State of the Union with Candy Crowley" in an interview that was recorded on Friday. "I think it was an act of cyber vandalism that was very costly, very expensive. We take it very seriously. We will respond proportionately, as I said."

Obama's remarks are important for framing what might come next.

One of the possibilities, he said, was a return of North Korea to the U.S. state sponsors of terrorism list, which automatically imposes certain sanctions on the country and restrictions on interaction with U.S. organizations.

But that's not a decision that he can make alone. It's decided by the State Department and weighs a history of support for terrorist acts.

"We're going to review those through a process that's already in place," Obama said. "I'll wait to review what the findings are."

Hours before broadcast of the TV interview, North Korea's powerful National Defense Commission issued a statement that again denied any link with the Sony hack but repeated praise for the action of the hacker group, which used the name "Guardians of Peace."

"The NDC of the DPRK highly estimates the righteous action taken by the "guardians of peace," though it is not aware of their residence," it said, using the official name of the country, The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

The statement was typical of North Korean style, full of indignation that it could be accused of such an attack and, equally in keeping with style, contained a threat to the U.S. government.

"Nothing is more serious miscalculation than guessing that just a single movie production company is the target of this counteraction. Our target is all the citadels of the U.S. imperialists who earned the bitterest grudge of all Koreans," it said. "The army and people of the DPRK are fully ready to stand in confrontation with the U.S. in all war spaces including cyber warfare space to blow up those citadels."

The National Defense Commission controls the country's army and has under it several cyber warfare divisions, including Unit 121, which is thought to employ the bulk of North Korea's hackers and operates from bases inside the country and overseas.

Channel Deals

MSI Cubi Mini-PC

ARN Distributor Directory

ARN Vendor Directory

Slideshows

​Inside the new HP Customer Welcome Centre in Sydney…

HP unveiled its new Customer Welcome Centre (CWC) in Sydney this week, following on more than a year after the vendor opened the doors of its Experience Centre in Melbourne (MEC). The new space offers on-site HP technicians and visiting channel partners the ability to reconfigure equipment and put together tailored solutions based on the needs of individual end clients or target vertical markets. The centre can also be booked by customers and partners for meetings, events, workshops, seminars, and training. Photos by HP.

Zscaler Australia toasts the channel at Xmas drinks

Zscaler recently hosted its partner update and Christmas drinks event in Australia where more than 20 partners attended the event at the QT hotel in the Sydney. The event provided a forum for the company to update its Australian partners on the company's strategy for cloud security in the year ahead. It was also a great opportunity for the company to introduce Sean Kopelke as country manager for A/NZ. The event ended with Christmas drinks and a celebration of momentum gained in 2016.

IN PICTURES: ​Nutanix X Tours

Nutanix recently held two ‘X Tours’, which brought the company’s flagship event .NEXT to Brisbane and Melbourne. Customers and partners got a firsthand look at the new era of IT and exposure to the potential of the Nutanix Enterprise Cloud platform. Both events featured key speakers both from Nutanix and its partners.

iasset.com is a channel management ecosystem that automates all major aspects of the entire sales, marketing and service process, including data tracking, integrated learning, knowledge management and product lifecycle management.

Related Whitepapers

Copyright 2016 IDG Communications. ABN 14 001 592 650. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of IDG Communications is prohibited.